


#TurnOnYourLights

by MinaValkyrie



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 07:21:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5699857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinaValkyrie/pseuds/MinaValkyrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Waking to a strange fog with stranger circumstances</p>
            </blockquote>





	#TurnOnYourLights

**Author's Note:**

> My 1st attempt at a short horror story. Original Work.

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._

Julie’s hand reached out, knocking her cell phone swiftly to the floor with a loud thud as it hit the carpet.

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._

“Dammit.” She cursed under her breath as she leaned over the side of the bed to silence the alarm. She hoped her movements wouldn’t wake her husband who seemed to be blissfully snoozing away next to her.

“Ugh, late again,” she muttered checking the time and moving to get out of bed, making a beeline to the bathroom to brush her teeth and hair. The mirror revealed a disheveled appearance and circles beginning to form under her eyes. She shook her head as she ignored them and got ready, still half asleep. A foray into the darkness of the bedroom revealed too much laundry that hadn’t made its way to the closet and no matching socks. She cursed again putting on what seemed to match since she’d be bundled in boots and a jacket anyway in a minute.

She grabbed her keys from the kitchen counter as she slipped on her last boot on her way out the door. The biting air forced her awake as she pulled her jacket more tightly around her.

“We really need a place with a garage.” She said this time aloud as she unlocked her car and sat inside. None of the motion lights had turned on again, which was nothing new but the amount of fog that greeted her headlights was nothing short of eerie as she flipped on her headlights and started down the driveway. The motion lights finally kicked on, not that they were much help in this weather.

_Ding._

She looked down at her phone, a fog advisory popped up on the notification screen. Figures, she hated going to work this early but she had to make a good impression at this new job. She couldn’t even see the houses across the street she noted as she pulled the car into the alley that connected her to the main street. She got to the corner and went to turn but a loud crash had her hitting the breaks in a panic.

“What the…” she started as she stared out to what should have been the street in front of her, but there was nothing but fog and her car was now off-kilter as though she’d just hit a huge pothole. There’s no pothole there, she flipped the car into reverse but seemed to only get traction on one side.

 _“Weird,”_ she thought as she moved the car to park and then engaged her four wheel drive before putting it in reverse again. With some coaxing the car popped out of the hole and back into the alley. She put the car in park again before venturing out of her car to see what had happened. She attempted to survey what her headlights were facing in front of the vehicle from her door, but there was only the dense fog greeting her. She circled in front standing in front of the headlights, still she could see nothing. She took a tentative few short steps, unsure if a passing car would be able to see her and not wanting to jump into the road – or into the apparent new pothole. A few more steps and there was nothing there. She balanced on her right while reaching out with her left foot and felt nothing – no street, no hole, just nothing.

A chill pervaded her spine as she glanced towards the house seeing the motion light had not turned off yet and she jumped back in her car to reverse up the alley before it went out. It was irrational she knew, but this just felt all wrong. There can’t be nothing at the end of their alley. She parked the car and fumbled with her keys as she unlocked the house door, hoping that she’s just being silly. She walks into her living room which faces the main street and looks out to where the street light on the opposite side should be – it’s out.

“It can’t be out, it was on last night…” She began muttering as she flipped on the porch light and again looked out the window. She could see her walk coming up the yard to the front door but nothing beyond that, the sidewalk, the street, the houses were all masked in fog. Her mind began racing with possibilities as she retrieved her phone to see if there was more news – there had to be something on social media at the least because this fog was just weird.

_Ding._

A text came through from Lydia, a friend who lived in the same town. “Have you tried to leave yet? Allen lost the car in this fog, don’t leave your house!” Julie quickly replied, “Lost the car?? There’s nothing at the end of my alley. What’s going on?” She decided to wake up Aiden, and he would help rationalize whatever this was. She went back to the bedroom and flipped on the light.

“Aiden, honey, I need you to get up. There’s something weird going on outside.” She said, trying to keep the concern from her voice as she sat down on his side of the bed. He rolled over and blinked at her a few times before looking at his alarm clock.

“It’s only 6 dear, what is so wrong at this hour?” He grumbled, half asleep and now rubbing his eyes in an attempt to wake up.

_Ring, ring ring._

Aiden grumbled and rolled over away from her as Julie picked up her phone.

“It’s gone Jules! The car is gone!” Lydia was almost in hysterics on the other end of the line.

“You texted that, what do you mean the car is gone?” Julie replied slowly, and Aiden perked up his head giving her a quizzical expression.

“Allen went to drive to work and he was leaving the driveway and I don’t know…he felt like it was falling then he tried to go in reverse or brake or…he jumped out of the car Jules and now it’s gone! What the hell is going on?” Lydia’s voice was getting more excited.

“Is Allen okay? I mean, he didn’t fall too right?” Julie said looking at Aiden and all the concern must have been creeping to her face because he finally got up and sat next to her to listen to the call.

“No thank goodness, he didn’t but he could’ve. He jumped and he hit the driveway, well what’s left of it because his legs hit nothing and he had to reel himself up. He was yelling for me and I ran out to help him. It was so scary…what if today was when he was taking the kids to daycare…what if…” Her voice trailed and they could hear soft crying on the other end along with Allen’s voice telling her to calm down.

“Lydia, I’m glad that you and Allen and the kids are okay. There’s definitely something strange going on out there, maybe it has to do with this fog? I can’t see anything past the yard and when I went to turn onto the street this morning the car hit like a pothole – I had to put it in four wheel drive to get it unstuck.” Julie said as calmly as she could, Lydia had always been excitable but almost losing Allen to…whatever was – or rather wasn’t – out there is terrifying. Aiden took note of the tone and grabbed the tablet from his nightstand, eager to find out if there was any news about this phenomenon.

“Hey Jules, just stay home – and tell Aiden too. It’s not safe out there, it’s like the roads are gone. I’ll get her calmed down; glad to know that we can still get through to someone though. Makes this ordeal a little less scary, ya’know?” Allen’s smooth as silk voice said, Lydia was still crying in the background.

“Yea, we’ll stay home. I’ll call you if we figure out what’s up. In the meantime – I think we should reach out to everyone else to make sure they’re safe. I’ll call Charles and Amelia here in town – but you’d better call your in-laws before they go to work.” Julie replied, keeping her voice calm.

“Will do, keep in touch.” Then the phone clicked off. Julie looked up at Aiden expectantly as she dialed Charles first – he usually left before she did for work. Only took one ring.

“Hey Charles? It’s Julie, stay home today – keep the wife and kids home too. There’s something weird going on outside.”

“I know,” his response was slow and sad, “we lost Daisy, she just ran outside to go to the bathroom and before I knew it she was gone. I flipped the back lights on but the fog is so thick and we can’t even hear her barking. I went to investigate and almost fell, the backyard only extends about as far as the light can see in this fog as far as I can tell. The kids are upset, Susan is too.”

“Oh goodness, I’m so sorry Charles. I just spoke with Lydia – Allen had to jump from the car before it went over into whatever isn’t there this morning. He’s alright but they’re real shaken up.”

“Dang, did you call Amelia yet?”

“No going to now, keep in touch and stay safe Charles.”

“You too kid.” Julie looked at the phone a moment before dialing Amelia – she was always running late and that may be a blessing today.

_Ring, ring, ring, ring._

“You’ve reached the voicemail of Amelia Ch…” Julie hung up before redialing frantically two more times.

“Hey, what’s up? I’m trying to get the girls ready.”

“Oh thank god.” Julie breathed immediately when the phone picked up. She hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath waiting for her to answer.

“Something wrong Jules?” Amelia questioned, the sounds of her three girls laughing in the background.

“You need to stay home, you and the girls. There’s something weird going on outside and it’s not safe.” Julie said, perhaps a bit too quickly eliciting an eyebrow raise from Aiden who was still researching what was going on.

“What? What’s weird? What are you talking about? Darla – put that down!”

“Amelia, you need to listen to me, you can’t go out of your house. It’s not just the fog, there’s something weird going on. Lydia’s Allen had to jump out of the car before it fell off the end of their driveway, and Charles – they lost their dog this morning. Aiden is researching it now to see what’s going on.”

“I – he what? Oh damn. Darla – put that down now! Sorry Jules. So what do you think it is?”

“I don’t know, but I know there’s nothing out past our alley, I almost drove out there too.” Julie replied, garnering Aiden’s immediate attention as he was now finally waking up. “Just don’t go anywhere alright? Stay inside and definitely keep the girls and Athena inside too okay?”

“Yeah Jules, just let me know what you find okay?”

“Yea, I will.” Click.

“You didn’t say that you almost fell into whatever this morning.” Aiden said suddenly, looking at her intently. Julie returned his gaze, and gave a weak smile.

“And what would you have said if I told you the street was gone and I almost drove the car off the earth?” Julie jested, but the look in Aiden’s eyes didn’t change.

“I would’ve thought you were messing with me until you had me research it.” He said as he turned the tablet around showing the latest Google headline results. ‘Fog eating Pets and Cars on the East Coast of America; Killer Fog Blankets the East; Stay Indoors! Fog Dangerous!’ and so on they went.

“Anything actually useful?” Julie asked, and Aiden turned the laptop back to him.

“Well, social media has been the most helpful, people are reporting in from all over the East coast citing the fog and it’s strange properties – that seems to be the most of what the coverage is based on. News outlets aren’t terribly helpful because no one made it to the office this morning so they’re having a hard time digging up people to figure out what’s going on. It seems to be isolated to the East though, at least right now.”

“We should call our parents…let them know…text everyone. Do you think Jace has left for work yet? He’s usually on the road by now. We should…”

“Stop a second. I already sent a ‘911’ text to everyone I have and put up a Facebook status, including our parents…but I do think we should start calling whoever I haven’t gotten responses from.” Aiden cut her off before she could continue that train of thought.

“Ok, let me text Lydia, Charles, and Amelia – let them know it’s the whole East Coast so they can tell their friends and family too.” Julie typed the message into her phone furiously, and sent a huge ‘911 emergency’ group text to additional friends that Aiden likely didn’t have in his phone. Then she set on updating her online sites as well – more or less photocopying the status across Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and anything else she had hoping to get the word out before people left their houses.

“When did this…”

“About 4 this morning the fog rolled in and just…erased things I guess.” Aiden replied before she could even finish. “That’s why no one got to work, and the ones that did are stuck there.”

“What about the people on the interstates? Did you hear back from Jace?”

“I dunno…I’ll call him again.”

Julie called her Mom and grandparents and anyone else she could think of that wouldn’t get the message. It felt like forever she was calling and explaining the same thing, that she didn’t know but don’t leave the house. Aiden had moved from the bedroom into the living room to survey the outside, but there was nothing to see – just a wall of fog.

The other bedroom door opened and their sleepy roommate Josie made her way into the living room.

“Everyone’s up making a commotion but there’s no coffee?” She quipped with a smile, which faded quickly when she saw the concern written across the faces of her friends.

“I’ll start the coffee…” Julie said off handedly walking past Josie into the kitchen, she needed something to keep her busy.

“Josie, why don’t you sit down?” Aiden followed up quickly, and Josie complied without a word – taking a seat opposite him on the couch. He explained what was going on with how the roads were all missing and maybe more, and showed her the articles on Google while Julie brewed and poured three cups of coffee before returning to the living room.

“It’s like something out of a John Carpenter film.” Josie said, wide-eyed but still fighting the last bits of sleep as she took the coffee that Julie offered her.

“Yea, it’s very bizarre – you might want to call your Dad and make sure he’s okay Josie.” Aiden replied, also taking a coffee mug before turning back to the tablet to see if there were any ‘developments.’

“Have you talked to Jace yet?” Jules spoke up eyeing Aiden, who only shook his head in response. “What about his wife? Did you call her?”

“Yea, no response from her either.”

“That’s really strange.” Julie said, as she stared outside at the offending fog. Everything about this morning was strange though. She wondered what would have happened had the motion lights turned off when she ventured outside earlier, what if their world only existed as far as the light reached, like with poor Daisy? The bigger question is – where do they go? What happens beyond the wall of fog? Answers that Aiden and likely millions more are searching for right now she thought as she turned her gaze to him, intently Googling away on the tablet. His brow was knitted as he stared at the screen, obviously not getting anything useful from it. Josie had moved into her office on the phone speaking excitedly to someone on her phone, also typing away on her laptop trying to find answers herself.

“Anything?” She asked, breaking Aiden’s concentration. He looked up briefly and began to answer as his phone rang, he quickly picked up.

“Hey Jace is that you? Are you okay man?” Aiden asked hurriedly. Julie moved to his side wondering what the response would be.

“What the hell is going on?” Jace replied his voice edged with fear. “I left for work around four and I get up to I70 then  this weird fog rolls in and next thing I know there’s just nothing but fog. Like the road isn’t there and Jackie’s not picking up her phone and I finally got the drivers around me to pull over – if you can call it that – so we could stop and chat to figure this out. You’re the only one that has picked up Aiden. How are you and Jules?”

“We’re fine, Jules is here. We’ve been trying to call Jackie too but no response. I’ve been calling you for about an hour now too. What’s it like out there?”

“It’s just fog, like it’s just white I guess. I don’t have any missed calls – maybe they’re not going through. If you’re home do you know what’s up?” Jace’s response followed quickly, his voice was quivering though he tried to maintain the conversation.

“Well, the fog rolled in over the East coast, everyone out here is affected. No one has talked to anyone _in_ it though according to what I can find. I’m glad you called man, so we know you’re okay at least. Here it’s weird like Jules almost fell off the driveway and one of her friend’s car did fall off the driveway and he jumped from it – and another’s dog fell off…fell off the world I guess. Maybe you all are stuck wherever that place is because you were driving at the time. Did you fall anywhere?”

“Nah, didn’t fall just everything disappeared in the fog, the trees the road – everything. The only people here are the ones we can…see I guess, like the car in front of me and behind me and the guys around them. Everyone kinda freaked out when the fog rolled in and they couldn’t see the road so we slowed and I rolled down my window to indicate we should all pull over so we did. We’ve been just trying to call family and friends since to see what’s up. Some guys get through, some don’t it’s like something’s blocking the calls maybe – the service is spotty and it shouldn’t be. So you’re telling me we _fell_ off the earth or something crazy?”

“No, no. I don’t know. Most of the reports are on social media, it’s just whoever was left in the office for the news outlets so I haven’t seen much come out of them other than ‘don’t leave where you are.’ So you guys are just hanging out huh? I’m glad you’re not alone but has anyone else come along? Like any other cars or anything?” Aiden was keeping his voice even; he didn’t want to scare Jace but motioned for Jules to try Jackie again.

“Yea the people here are nice, just not sure what to do – wait it out? We don’t even know if we pulled over or where we did. I mean we didn’t drive much after the fog rolled in but still I’m not exact on where we are – not quite to the second mountain for sure. Just glad I got someone on the line.” Jace responded, he still sounded on edge but better for talking to Aiden. Jules hit redial again on Jackie’s number with no answer to either her calls or texts, she shook her head at Aiden to indicate she had nothing.

“Jace, you have your neighbor’s number? The one beside you guys?”

“Yea, why?”

“Let me have it, I’ll have Jules call and see if they can see Jackie – Jules isn’t having any luck getting her.”

“Yea, give me a minute.” Jace replied, the phone shuffled and he must’ve put it on speaker phone since they could now hear several other voices in the background talking. “It’s 304-555-5687, you got that?”   Jules nodded as she typed it in and called the neighbor.

“Yea man, stay on the line though.” Aiden replied, looking at Julie’s reactions.

_Ring, ring, ring._

“Hello?” A timid woman’s voice picked up on the line.

“Hi, this is Julie, Jackie’s friend. I got your number from her husband and we haven’t been able to reach her – can you see anything at their house like lights or anything? We’re worried because of this fog.” Julie said even keel, hoping she didn’t have to explain further.

“Let me look out the window, I’m not going out there – they say people are disappearing in this fog.” The woman replied.

“Yea, but maybe not since we have Jace on the phone and he’s out there, but he says the people he’s with are all lost, they can’t see anything at all.”

“Yea, well glad he’s okay. She’s not usually up this early – hopefully she’s asleep. Let me see now.” There was a long pause before Julie heard some clicks and a door opening then muffled screaming. “JACKIE! JACKIE Get over here! Don’t go no further out there! Jackie it ain’t safe!” There was more muffled talking but Julie couldn’t tell what was being said.

“Hello? Hello? You still there? Is Jackie okay? What’s going on!?” Julie started talking before yelling into her phone. There was rustling then finally a response.

“Hey I got her, she’s scared out of her wits but she’s okay. She was wandering around in the dark out there before I flipped on the light and saw her. I’m going to get her warmed up – I’ll call you back later.” The woman said quickly and before Julie could protest the phone clicked off. She looked at Aiden worried before she took the phone from him.

“Hey Jace, Jackie is alright. The neighbor found her.”

“Found her? Found her where?” Jace replied quickly.

“I didn’t get much on details, she went downstairs to see if she could see any lights, flicked on her outside light and found Jackie outside wandering in the dark. She’s getting her warmed up and said she’ll call back later, but Jackie is okay.”

“Thanks Jules – quick thinking with calling the neighbor,” he replied but his voice was low. Julie handed the phone back to Aiden before getting up to check on Josie hoping that she was faring better getting in touch with her friends and family.

“Hey Josie, you talk to everyone?” Julie asked, standing in the doorway of Josie’s office. Josie’s phone was next to her and she was pouring over something on her computer. “Josie?”

“Dad’s gone.” Josie’s reply came quick and sudden, but her eyes didn’t leave the screen.

“Gone? Like he left for work?” Julie prodded carefully.

“Gone like we can’t find him, like he’s gone, he went to work and that was it.” Josie said curtly, turning now to look at Julie, her eyes glassy.

“We got Jace on the line, he went to work too. He’s out on 70 with other commuters and they’re each having intermittent phone service trying to call anyone. It’s possible your Dad is out there in a similar situation.” Julie replied slowly, and Josie grabbed a tissue before she spoke again.

“You got Jace and he’s out there? Is he okay? What’s it like? Are they safe?”

“Yea, he’s fine – everything is just fog though or white. They can’t see anything but he stopped with some other people and they’re together out there, alive and all. Jace said the phone service was really bad but other than that…”

“I’m glad, maybe he is out there then. I need to call his wife back, let her know. She hasn’t heard of people out there yet and there’s nothing on this thing either about them.” Josie replied waving to the computer screen as she picked up her phone.

“Yea…I’ll put something up.” Julie replied haphazardly as she started towards her own office. She needed to do something, get the word out. She sat down at her desk and turned on her computer; she looked out the window and noticed she could see nothing. There was nothing out her window – the one that faced the driveway, it was just white. She jumped at the thought and she must’ve yelled because Aiden came running.

“What’s the matter?” He asked upon entering the room, but Julie just pointed at the window before brushing past him hurriedly to the kitchen to switch on the outside lights.

“What the…” Aiden started, then Julie flipped on the light and he yelled, “Don’t open the door!” as he rounded the corner to the kitchen after her. Josie joined them then, still on the phone, looking at them and motioning to explain. Julie looked at Aiden before heading back to her office and looked out the window, Aiden followed as did Josie and they all gasped at the sight.

“The cars are gone, the driveway is only half there it’s…I drove my car back to the driveway this morning, I know I did…” Julie started, stammering through her sentences while Josie just looked in horror and Aiden dashed out of the room. Julie turned briefly before following and Josie answered the person on the other end of her call.

“Melinda, turn on all the outside lights. Just do it!”

Julie found Aiden in the living room having frantically turned on all of the outside lights and inside lights as well, moving all the curtains back so the light would show outside. The outside, what was left of it was being quickly encroached by the fog. Aiden fumbled with his phone, he’d been yelling unintelligibly into it before but now he gathered himself.

“Jace, turn on all the lights in all the cars, the fog can eat away at objects without the light. Just, do it, our cars are all gone and most of the driveway now.” Aiden paused listening intently, “Yes, just I guess they go to where you are but you all need to stick together and stay in the light.”

Julie turned and moved back to her office before picking up her phone to text out the latest information. Now she needed to do something to get the word out. She started up all the social media she had to see what the trending tags were to help boost her message. She glanced through all the top items and #ECFog seemed to be the one getting the most attention. So she started typing out a message to put across platforms.

‘Turn on all your lights the fog will take the outside if left in the dark #ECFog #TurnOnYourLights #FogSafety’ is what she typed into Twitter before copy pasting it across the other platforms. It made as much sense as it could; now she just had to hope it would trend. Her phone was rampant with text responses coming in from friends she had texted – they were all eerily similar, referring to the lack of space they’d seen earlier before they turned the lights off. She switched over to Reddit, there were some threads but they were haphazard in their discussions, and began a thread about the occurrences she was aware of – starting with her own experience, then Allen, then Daisy, and then Jace. She typed out the lights recommendation based on what she had seen. She posted the thread, and went back to Twitter, hoping to use this thread as a foundation for others’ experiences and recommendations.

‘Fog experience and recommendations gather here: tinyurl.com/dkj2k #ECFog #TurnOnYourLights #FogSafety’ she typed out before copy and pasting this message too. She sighed, as she wasn’t sure what else she could do from here and turned around to see Aiden in the doorway staring at his phone.

“You okay?” She asked.

“It cut out, I lost him.” Aiden replied, his eyes still on the phone.

“Did he sound okay? He said the service was spotty.” She offered.

“He sounded okay, it cut mid-sentence. He was getting them all to turn their lights on but parts of cars were already missing when we told him. Just parts like the fog just ate them.” Aiden’s voice was low and laced in concern. Julie got up to hug him.

“I’m sure he’s alright, he just lost service.” Julie replied, squeezing him tighter.

“What are you working on?” Aiden asked, motioning to her computer.

“Just trying to get a dialogue going across platforms, so the information is more centralized. I made a thread on Reddit and posted links on Twitter and Tumblr and…”

“Yeah? You getting anything back yet?” Aiden inquired moving from her grasp to the computer. Julie moved to her chair and brought the thread back up along with Twitter to see if it was trending, and she did have some responses already. Nothing they hadn’t heard, so she edited her Reddit post to include the new information about Jace and parts of cars missing. She also capitalized the importance of lights. Aiden sat beside her watching in between glancing at his phone.

“So, what are the people saying?” Aiden asked again as Julie started to scroll through the responses. Many were similar to their own but one person reported missing parts of their house to the fog. Many others replied with suggestions for testing to see what was there, but the user was reluctant due to losing a dog already to the fog. Julie switched to twitter where her new tags were trending already, many people were passing on the word to turn on the lights and reporting issues from leaving their houses in darkness.

Julie switched to Instagram, she hadn’t posted there but wondered if others had. They were greeted with photos of missing pieces of cars and houses and yards immediately upon logging in. The photos would show a car whose back end was consumed in fog, but other pictures were far more telling. One photo depicted an old car in someone’s driveway with the outside lights obviously on, and a person touching just behind the driver’s window into where the frame should have come up to form the rest of the door, but their hand grasped nothing. The person had posted they lost the nerve after taking the photo and seeing the rest of his feed blowing up about keeping the lights on. Picture after picture of the fog they scrolled through before returning to her Reddit thread.

She first edited the post again to include a link to the photo of the car that was half there with the guy’s hand before scrolling through the responses. More talk of talked to other people ‘out there’ was a hot topic since many people were missing loved ones.

“Hey Josie,” Julie called out startling Aiden, “there’s more reports about other people that left for work and people talking to them. The cell service is bad for all of them, seems to be what the issue is.” Josie appeared a moment later in the doorway looking at both of them, phone in hand but she was no longer actively talking on it.

“What are you all doing?” She asked, moving towards the two of them huddled around the computer.

“Jules started a thread about what’s going on, seems to have taken off.” Aiden replied, still scanning the page of responses that filled the screen.

“Any good news?”

“No, not really – but no real bad news either other than people missing parts of cars.” Julie replied, “But everyone seems to be okay regardless of where they are.” Josie nodded in response, now scanning the page as well.

The three sat like that for a while, pouring through the responses, or the trending tags on social media together in silence. The stories all sounded the same, no real changes across the board for anyone.

_Ring, ring, ring._

They jumped at the sound, and Julie moved to pick up her phone, not recognizing the number.

“Hello?”

“Hey Jules,” Jackie’s raspy voice responded, “Thanks for thinking of me earlier. I was stuck in…nothing I guess earlier till the neighbor found me. I’d been walking forever too.”

“Walking forever? What do you mean?”

“It was just white; I couldn’t see the house or the cars anymore so I started walking back to where it should have been. I don’t know how long I was out there. How is Jace?”

“Jace was fine last we spoke to him. He’s with a group of commuters that got stuck out on the highway. So what happened that the neighbor found you?”

“Glad to hear Jace is alright and not alone. I don’t know, I was wandering and it was white and I was walking then I heard her yelling for me and saw the light and walked towards her. It was so strange it was all white and then it wasn’t when I went towards her light. I’m still not really sure what happened but I’m going to stay here so call her phone if you need, I’ll talk to you later Jules.”

“Yea sure, glad you’re okay Jackie.” _Click_. Julie stared at the phone; Jackie’s tone had been so off it was a bit discerning. Then again they don’t know how long she was out there, wandering alone and afraid and cold. A shiver ran down Julie’s spine as she went to update the thread post again with Jackie’s account of being lost in the fog. Aiden and Josie just watched silently, they had heard the conversation and had nothing to offer while Julie typed away. She then made another status update to Twitter and the others:

‘Those lost in the fog need light and a voice yelling for them to be found tinyurl.com/dkj2k #FogSafety #ECFog #LostInFog #TurnOnYourLights’

Julie got up and walked away from the computer to go sit in the living room, all the rooms were bright now because they dared not turn off any of the lights for fear the fog would invade their house. Aiden and Josie followed, and the three just sat in the living room in silence wondering what would happen next.

* * *

 

If the sun ever came up there was no sign of it, the outside still white with fog and illuminated from the lights that they had turned on in all the rooms. Each of them had gotten texts and calls checking in but no news about what was going on. The hours passed slowly, and they ate - going through the motions, but not saying much. The mood inside the house was one of melancholy, they could talk to the outside world via their phones and computers but they couldn’t leave the house. The feeling of being trapped began working on each of them in its own way.

The day became night, but none of them dared to sleep, keeping themselves busy instead with menial cleaning or other forgotten tasks – but no one in the house was far from anyone. The feeling of isolation bearing down on the house was too great. The night became the next day, and there was still no sign of the sun, the thread had blown up and was featured on news outlets along with the Twitter messages and various disturbing Instagram pictures – but the news was hard to watch and the anchors looked as sleep deprived as they did, the TV stayed off because there was no regular programming just the pervasive news about the fog and any developments were seen first on Twitter or Facebook before they appeared on the television. They had tried to watch Netflix for a bit, but it couldn’t keep anyone’s interest – glued to their phones and their computers as they waited for good news.

A new tag began trending on the third day, #USFog. The fog had settled itself in other parts of the country – parts that were more prepared than they were. The street lamps had been brightened in several locations and additional lighting added on populated streets in preparation for it to move in – things the East coast hadn’t been able to do. The photos looked like people were able to walk around more freely, but any darkened areas were still vulnerable to the fog, and as such more people were lost.

Julie looked over the pantry on the fourth day, the other two were now grateful that Julie had a tendency to buy far too much food for the house. It would last them a while, but reports of power outages in various locations had been coming in now. People waiting to become lost and cold in the fog, it felt like they were waiting to die. The thread was still going strong and had been restarted and moved a few times, but reading the responses was too exhausting mentally. They took to playing board games in the kitchen, keeping their phones charged at all times and flashlights with extra batteries on their person. They had essentially made small ‘bug-out’ bags waiting for the inevitable.

It was day 6, and Julie had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room. Josie’s screams jolted her awake, the lights were out. She scrambled to find her flashlight and get to the kitchen. Aiden grabbed her having found his own and yelled for Josie to meet in the kitchen. They could hear the scrambling and assumed she was on her way as they ran into the kitchen before the fog took over. Aiden started a fire in the fireplace while Julie called out to Josie and flashed the light around trying to keep as much of the house as she could. She could hear Josie calling out too, but her voice was far away – too far to still be inside. She pleaded with Aiden that they should search for her, but he was concentrated on the fire and not leaving it.

So they sat as the house disappeared into the fog around them. They took turns keeping the fire going so they’d at least have this last bit of warmth. When it was out they walked, trying to find Josie or anyone else. They stopped comforting each other as their voices grew tired and frail, they stopped doing anything but exchanging knowing looks as they ate their last bits of food in their packs, drank their last water, and both cell phones died. They held hands and hugged after putting the last set of batteries into the flashlight. And when the light went out, they held hands tighter until the fog took them both.

 


End file.
